Blog
We enjoy sharing our experiences through blogs posts, as we continuously seek new ways to serve our clients.
A growing trend in public sector information technology (IT) procurement is the 50/50 evaluation: assigning 50% of available points to cost and 50% to the solution. The logic is that weighing cost at 50% forces bidders to reduce their costs and assures the buyer the…
In our last blog post, my colleague Nikki Angle wrote about the myths and realities of Agile in government. It’s a significant shift that requires increased communication, readiness assessments, training, and reinforcement – all components that we deliver every day through organizational change management. Two State of California…
We hear about ‘Agile’ in government projects more and more frequently. It’s not a new concept, but one with many misconceptions that can derail a transition from a Waterfall to Agile environment. According to Maria Burton from Focus on Training, her teams experienced three common myths as they transitioned…
Change can be difficult, and usually when an organization undergoes change things get worse before they get better. I recently heard this phenomenon described as the “square root of change” – and I think it’s something that project sponsors and project managers too often neglect.…
Highlands Consulting has outgrown our former office space on the 15th floor of the Wells Fargo Building in Downtown Sacramento. Our weekly all-staff meetings were getting crowded and our existing lease was ending, so we were pleased to find a new, larger office on the…
Last week, the California Department of Technology (CalTech) celebrated the release of the new IT Project Approval Lifecycle (PAL). A result of the State Technology Approval Reform (STAR) initiative, the PAL replaces the current feasibility study report (FSR) and procurement processes with a new iterative…
May is Bike Month in Sacramento, when everyone is encouraged to trade vehicle trips for bike trips. With one day left in May, Sacramentans have logged 1,557,929 biked miles! Truly impressive. Highlands Consulting had two “cyclists” logging miles this year: Eric Norton (me!) and Abby Darrah. Combined, we logged 18 round trips…
The Highlands Consulting Team and their families spent Saturday morning giving back to the community by volunteering at Special Olympics Northern California’s Spring Games Competition. The Spring Games were held at the Roseville Aquatics Center and featured swimming, track, and tennis competitions with athletes from…
Over 900 Change Management professionals gathered in Las Vegas for the annual ACMP Conference last week. This year’s theme was Driving Business Results Through Effective Change Management. The conference keynote speaker, Daniel Pink, kicked off the session by discussing the rapid change of pace in…
That moment during a brainstorming workshop when you ask for input and your team begins to avoid eye contact. You ask, is it me or did the coffee pot suddenly stop working this morning? Perhaps the problem is creativity within groups. We’ve all met the…